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Afghanistans schools have reopened for the new academic year, but hundreds of thousands of teenage girls remain barred from attending classes as Taliban authorities ban their attendance in secondary school.

Education Minister Habibullah Agha confirmed in a statement that schools up to grade six will currently be open for girls, effectively retaining a ban on high school for female students.

Madrassas, or Islamic schools, are the only education centres open for girls of all ages. Yalda, a ninth grader in Kabul, told Al Jazeera that the madrassa was good for enhancing her knowledge of religion.

But the madrassa cannot help me become a doctor, because thats done in school, she said.

Tenth grader Sara said she daydreamed of schools reopening all the time.

Maybe someday schools will reopen and my education will progress further. I will never lose hope, she said.

Taliban authorities have imposed an austere interpretation of Islam since storming back to power in August 2021 after the withdrawal of United States-led foreign forces that backed the previous governments.

The ban on girls secondary education came into effect in March last year, just hours after the education ministry reopened schools for both girls and boys. No Muslim-majority country bans womens education.

Taliban leaders, who also banned women from university education in December, have repeatedly claimed they will reopen secondary schools for girls once conditions have been met, including remodelling the syllabus along Islamic lines.

Taliban officials have justified the school ban and curbs on womens freedom due to a lack of a safe environment. Some senior Taliban leaders, however, said that Islam granted women rights to education and work.

Similar assurances were made during the Talibans first stint in power between 1996 and 2001, but girls remained banned from high schools throughout their five-year rule.

Catherine Russell, executive director of the United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF), told Al Jazeera that the situation was absolutely crushing.

The ban takes away their ability to participate in their community in a way where they can ultimately have jobs, become doctors or teachers, she said.

In turn, that has a negative impact on the countrys economy and on a number of sectors where women had been making a difference.

The health system relies on women. Nurses, doctors, need to be educated so that they can take a prominent place in the country, Russell said. The practical impact is devastating, and its also so crushing for these girls who have dreams.

Afghanistan is the only country in the world where girls are prohibited from going to secondary school.

Women have also been effectively squeezed out of public life, removed from most government jobs or paid a fraction of their former salaries to stay at home.

They are also barred from going to parks, fairs, gyms and public baths, and must cover up in public.

The United Nations said Afghanistan under the Taliban government is the most repressive country in the world for womens rights.

The UN Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA) urged the authorities on Tuesday to lift the ban on girls education.

UNAMA reiterates its call to de facto authorities to reverse all discriminatory policies against women and girls, the mission said on Twitter.

They not only impede the aspirations of half of the population but are causing great damage to Afghanistan.

The ban halts two decades of progress during which literacy rates among women almost doubled. The number of girls in school increased almost 20 times since 2001, from just 5,000 to more than 100,000 in 2021.

Haroun Rahimi, assistant professor of law at the American University of Afghanistan, wrote in an Al Jazeera op-ed that the ban was causing incalculable harm to the Afghan youth and the future of the country.

However, the Taliban have been paying the salary of female schoolteachers for now. Remarkably, enrolment numbers in primary schools for both boys and girls have increased in some areas of the country as security has improved, he said.

According to UNICEFs Russell, the Taliban is not a monolithic organisation, and some among its ranks understood that the country will never prosper and do well if half of the population is not able to participate.

They are essentially saying that for now they cannot go to school, and I would argue to them that these girls are human beings, that they have a right to healthcare, they have a right to an education and those rights need to be respected, Russell said.

The international community has made the right to education for women a key condition in negotiations over aid and recognition of the current Taliban government.

No country has so far officially recognised the Taliban as Afghanistans legitimate rulers.

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Afghanistan school year starts without millions of teenage girls - Al Jazeera English

KABUL, March 21 (Reuters) - Afghanistan's school year started on Tuesday, the education ministry said, as the U.N. children's agency renewed calls for teenage girls to be able to rejoin the classroom.

A year ago, after signalling that they would open schools for all students, Taliban authorities made a U-Turn, leaving many girls who had turned up to their high school classes in tears and sparking global condemnation that has hampered the Taliban's efforts to gain formal international recognition.

Since then primary schools for girls have stayed open but most high schools have been closed and the Taliban barred female students from university in December, provoking international outcry and protests In some Afghan cities.

A letter from the education ministry confirming the official start of the school year after the winter break this week made no mention of any change in access for girls. The head of the U.N. children's agency in Afghanistan said authorities needed to open schools to all students so they could resume socialisation and building skills as well as academic learning.

"As the new school year in Afghanistan begins, we rejoice in the millions of boys and girls returning to primary school classrooms. Yet, we are deeply disappointed not to see adolescent girls going back to their classrooms as well," said Fran Equiza, UNICEF's Afghanistan representative, in a tweet.

As many Afghan women have continued calling for schools to re-open, enrolment at female religious schools - the only remaining option - has gone up over the past year.

In Kunduz province, one of a handful of northern provinces where some girls' high schools had quietly remained open last year, authorities said they were closed for now.

"This year the schools are open up to class six for girls, we are waiting for further notice about secondary classes," Mohammed Ismail Abu Ahmad, the head of Kunduz's education department told Reuters.

In the capital Kabul, school openings appeared limited on Tuesday which fell on Nowruz, the Persian New Year that is widely celebrated in Afghanistan and which had previously been a public holiday.

Taliban authorities said last year that they would not recognise Nowruz as a public holiday, though they had not barred people from celebrating privately.

Reporting by Mohammad Yunus Yawar; Writing by Charlotte GreenfieldEditing by Tomasz Janowski

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Afghanistan's school year starts with calls for all girls to be allowed back - Reuters

PESHAWAR/KABUL, March 22 (Reuters) - At least 13 people were killed and more than 90 injured in Pakistan and Afghanistan after a magnitude 6.5 earthquake struck late on Tuesday, government officials said.

At least nine people were killed and 44 injured in northwest Pakistan, a Pakistani government official said, and hospitals in northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province were put into a state of emergency overnight.

At least four people were killed and 50 injured in Afghanistan, a health ministry official there said.

Houses and buildings in both countries were also damaged, authorities said.

The quake was felt over an area more than 1,000 kilometres (621 miles) wide by some 285 million people in Pakistan, India, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan, the European-Mediterranean Seismological Centre said.

[1/3]People come out of a restaurant after a tremor was felt in Lahore, Pakistan March 21, 2023. REUTERS/Akhtar Soomro

The epicentre was in the Hindu Kush mountains, in the sparsely populated northeastern Afghan province of Badakhshan, 40km southeast of Jurm village, at the considerable depth of 187km, the U.S. Geological Survey said.

In Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province senior provincial official Abdul Basit said that addition to the dead and injured, at least 19 houses were damaged.

Shafiullah Rahimi, a spokesperson for Afghanistan's disaster mitigation ministry, said late on Tuesday that two people had been killed in the eastern province of Laghman.

Large parts of South Asia are seismically active because a tectonic plate known as the Indian plate is pushing north into the Eurasian plate.

A 6.1 magnitude earthquake in eastern Afghanistan killed more than 1,000 people last year.

In 2005, at least 73,000 people were killed by a 7.6 magnitude quake that struck northern Pakistan.

Reporting by Jibran Ahmad in Peshawar, Mohammad Yunus Yawar and Charlotte Greenfield in Kabul; Writing by Shilpa Jamkhandikar; Editing by Jacqueline Wong

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Earthquake in Afghanistan kills at least 13, nine of them in Pakistan - Reuters

Afghanistan

Lord Justice Haddon-Cave issues call for evidence, saying it is critical law-breakers be referred to authorities

A judge investigating allegations of more than 50 summary killings by SAS soldiers in Afghanistan has issued a call for anyone with evidence to come forward, saying it was critical that law-breakers be referred to authorities.

Launching his independent inquiry, Lord Justice Haddon-Cave said he was very hopeful there would be full cooperation with his work, which he said was ultimately about restoring the reputation of the military and moral authority.

Either the allegations are untrue, or if some of them are true then the military and the country can hold its head high and say we have looked into these properly and thoroughly. Its about, ultimately, reputation, he said.

He said he was confident he and his team would get to the bottom of the claims, which include an alleged cover-up of illegal activity and claims of inadequate investigations by the Royal Military Police.

Asked if his investigations could extend to taking evidence from the Taliban, and about the obstacles in terms of communicating with witnesses in Afghanistan, Haddon-Cave said he and his team would do everything in our power to facilitate contributions.

Ministers announced the statutory judge-led inquiry, which will have powers to compel people to give evidence, in December after allegations 54 Afghans were killed in suspicious circumstances by one SAS unit in Helmand province between 2010 and 2011, and accusations these amounted to war crimes.

A high court case brought by the law firm Leigh Day on behalf of one man, Saifullah, alleged that his father, two brothers and a cousin were killed during an SAS raid on a compound in southern Afghanistan in February 2011.

The inquiry is tasked with determining whether investigations conducted by the Royal Military Police were carried out properly and effectively, and whether there is credible information that numerous extrajudicial killings were carried out by British armed forces between 2010 and 2013. The judge said the three-year period sufficiently captures the allegations currently being made.

The inquiry will also seek to determine whether the circumstances of alleged extrajudicial killings were covered up at any stage and what lessons can be learned.

A case management hearing is scheduled for 25 April in London, which will hear further details of four phases that will start with the collection and scrutiny of thousands of documents, many highly sensitive. This will be followed by what Haddon-Cave described as background briefings about military operations and the role of British forces in Afghanistan, followed by hearings.

It was his intention to hold as many of these as possible in public, he said, but national security and the need to protect witnesses meant many would have to be held in private. When it came to evidence from members of special forces such as the SAS, he said it was doubtful anyone other than the inquiry team could be present.

Asked why the term special forces was not mentioned in his opening statement, he told reporters that armed forces was the phrase that was to be used in the terms of reference but would not elaborate.

I would urge anyone, who has got any information or material, which they think may be relevant to theinquiry, to please get in touch with the inquiry team as soon as possible, he said, as an official website went live.

The fourth phase of the inquiry will involve the finalisation of the report before it is laid before parliament and made public.

The families of eight people, including three young boys, who were allegedly murdered by UK special forces in two separate incidents during night raids in Afghanistan in 2011 and 2012 have previously welcomed the inquiry.

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UK begins inquiry into alleged SAS extrajudicial killings in Afghanistan - The Guardian

A year and a half after the developments of August 15, 2021, when the Islamic Emirate regained control of Afghanistan, the situation in the country remains extremely hopeful.

The security situation has improved significantly. Violence levels have dropped sharply over the past 18 months and continue to reach new lows, despite doomsday predictions from critics of the new government in Kabul.

Even in the hotel lobbies of Doha during negotiations, many diplomats had harped on about the possibility of another destructive civil war, unless their demands were met. But the leaders of the Islamic Emirate took this contingency into account and enacted measures to avoid such an outcome.

While gaining control of the entire country, we took steps to weaken the possibility of a renewed war, by answering the concerns of Afghans and adopting the humane Islamic message of general amnesty and brotherhood.

Today, not only has the war come to an end but Afghanistan is being administered by an independent, powerful, united, central and responsible government. This is a first for Afghanistan in more than four decades.

The government has taken steps to disentangle Afghanistan from the crippling reliance on foreign aid which defined the political setup of the past decades. Not only that, we are Afghanising all sectors, making them more accountable to the needs of the local population, and with a focus on capacity building and sustainability. This gives strength to our feeling of ownership of our own territory.

At the same time, we also understand that the globalised nature of modern relations means that all state actors must learn to live in harmony and peace with one another. Such relations should be founded on the immutable principles of equality, mutual respect and cooperation through the pursuit of shared interests. Bearing this in mind, the current government of Afghanistan once again extends its hand of positive engagement to the world.

We think a unique opportunity has emerged to embark on rapprochement between Afghanistan and the world. Domestically, the unity and cohesion of Afghan society are stronger than ever before. We celebrate, and take pride, in our diversity and rich history. We dont believe in imposing the majoritys will on a minority. In our view, every citizen of the country is an inseparable part of the collective whole.

The conditions are ripe for Afghanistan to rise up as a responsible and independent member of the international community and to fulfil its responsibility in promoting global peace and security. The international community, on its part, should reciprocate by welcoming Afghanistan into its fold while paying respect to its independence and assisting it to stand on its feet. Our foreign policy will be based on a balanced and independent approach, that avoids entanglement in global and regional rivalries. We will pursue opportunities for shared interests and peaceful coexistence, based on the principle of equality and respect.

As for our internal affairs, which have at times been misconceived or misconstrued, there remains the need to dispel misinformation and depict an accurate picture of the values and needs of Afghanistan. The religious and cultural sensibilities of our society require a cautious approach. Any government that has not maintained the proper equilibrium, pertaining to such sensibilities, has ultimately faced serious difficulties. This is a lesson that our recent history has emphasised over and over again.

We believe in dialogue and an exchange of ideas, in an atmosphere free from political or economic pressures, and aimed at finding practical solutions and dispelling misunderstandings. Past experiences show that weaponising human suffering does not bear fruit. Alleviating the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan is our joint moral responsibility. Seeking to obtain political concessions by perpetuating mass suffering is neither civilised nor morally justifiable.

The primary cause of the ongoing economic crisis is the imposition of sanctions and banking restrictions by the United States. This impedes and delays our efforts to address the humanitarian crisis. The only path that respects the dignity of the Afghan people requires the lifting of sanctions and other commercial restrictions on the country. Space should be created to nurture the spirit and initiative of the Afghan people. Moreover, the US should unfreeze Afghanistans frozen assets, and in line with the Doha agreement, lift all sanctions. What moral and political justifications can the US have for imposing crippling sanctions on a war-torn nation?

We remind the US and others that sanctions and pressures do not resolve differences. Only mutual trust does. Afghanistan has a history of failed states and collapsed governments. Not even global powers and grand alliances were able to prevent this.

What would be the consequence of weakening this government? Surely, such a scenario will be accompanied by a great human tragedy that will not be limited to Afghanistan, but rather usher in new and unforeseen security, refugee, economic, health and other challenges for our neighbours, the region and the world.

The bitter reality is that over the past two decades, the Afghan economy was made wholly dependent on foreign aid, almost to the point of addiction. With the screeching halt of foreign aid, there is now a need to address the basic and fundamental needs of the Afghan people.

We recommend that aid should prioritise the creation of jobs and the completion of infrastructural projects with a durable impact. Simply handing out bags of money will not result in sustainable livelihoods for millions of people unless the domestic economy is revived.

The first prerequisite for that is the removal of sanctions, to pave way for the private sector to be revitalised. All obstacles to transnational trade, extraction of natural resources, and the implementation of national mega projects should be removed. We, on our part, remain committed to ensuring a conducive environment and to working with all states based on our shared interests. A self-reliant Afghanistan is in the interest of everyone while a failed Afghanistan jeopardises all.

There is a need for the international community to establish political and economic relations with the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, while respecting its sovereignty and territorial integrity.

We have made important progress in the past year and a half. This, despite the fact that we inherited a collapsed narco-state, with an emptied treasury, unpaid bills, millions of drug addicts, rampant corruption, universal poverty and unemployment and a stagnant economy.

We established a professional security force, maintained nationwide security and ensured that no one uses the territory of Afghanistan against other countries. We have completely banned the cultivation of drugs. We welcome those that remain sceptical to visit Afghanistan and witness these undeniable facts up close.

Similarly, for the first time in decades, an Afghan government procured its budget entirely from domestic revenues. In the past, over two-thirds of the government budget was comprised of foreign grants. Moreover, the government has nationalised economic institutions, ensuring that these institutions serve their domestic mandates. In January, the World Banks latest report reflected these advances.

Furthermore, the government has clamped down on corruption, which, in the past, resulted in Afghanistan being listed at the top of the most corrupt countries. It has also facilitated movement for Afghans who wish to travel domestically or move overseas. This was done to address the demand of the international community; we also retained around 500,000 members of the previous administration, while increasing the size of the public sector.

We do acknowledge that there remain challenges and shortcomings. But their solution requires time, means and cooperation. Broadly speaking, virtually all countries of the world have problems of their own. Yet, we choose to assist and alleviate, rather than shun and exacerbate.

Let us recall that the international military coalition of the past two decades brought in hundreds of thousands of troops, and expended trillions of dollars, yet were unable to obtain their desired outcome. Even now, they have chosen to live in the past, rather than turn a new leaf. They have repeatedly chosen to turn a blind eye to the positive steps of the government, and have only adopted a policy of accusations and pressure.

Hence, there remains a need to understand and accept the reality that one hand cannot clap.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial stance.

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Afghanistan is ready to work with the US, but sanctions must go - Al Jazeera English